1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of computer performance, and more specifically, to performance simulation.
2. Description of Related Art
Performance simulations on processor systems are useful to evaluate design alternatives. Complex architectures of modern microprocessors typically require extensive simulation or modeling to accurately characterize the system performance. In the area of multiple cores or multiprocessor systems, such a simulation has become a challenge due to the complexity caused by interactions between the multiple cores or processors and memory subsystem usage.
Existing techniques to simulate performance of multi-core or multi-processor systems have a number of drawbacks. Techniques focusing on accurately simulating the micro-architecture features are very slow. To reduce simulation time, there are techniques that use random sampling or characterization-based sampling. Although these techniques may be effective for single-threaded workloads simulation, they may not be efficient for multi-threaded or multi-core environments. Other techniques such as analytical models and reduced input sets require a formal proof or validation of each model, and therefore are not appropriate for large design space exploration. In addition, they may not be accurate.